The interstellar medium in Andromeda's dwarf spheroidal galaxies - I. Content and origin of the interstellar dust

Abstract

Dwarf spheroidal galaxies are among the most numerous galaxy population in the Universe, but their main formation and evolution channels are still not well understood. The three dwarf spheroidal satellites (NGC 147, NGC 185, and NGC 205) of the Andromeda galaxy are characterized by very different interstellar medium properties, which might suggest them being at different galaxy evolutionary stages. While the dust content of NGC 205 has been studied in detail in an earlier work, we present new Herschel dust continuum observations of NGC 147 and NGC 185. The non-detection of NGC 147 in Herschel SPIRE maps puts a strong constraint on its dust mass (≤128-68+124 M⊙). For NGC 185, we derive a total dust mass Md = 5.1±1.0 × 103 M⊙, which is a factor of ~2-3 higher than that derived from ISO and Spitzer observations and confirms the need for longer wavelength observations to trace more massive cold dust reservoirs. We, furthermore, estimate the dust production by asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and supernovae (SNe). For NGC 147, the upper limit on the dust mass is consistent with expectations of the material injected by the evolved stellar population. In NGC 185 and NGC 205, the observed dust content is one order of magnitude higher compared to the estimated dust production by AGBs and SNe. Efficient grain growth, and potentially longer dust survival times (3-6 Gyr) are required to account for their current dust content. Our study confirms the importance of grain growth in the gas phase to account for the current dust reservoir in galaxies.